


All Along the Watchtower

by kkscatnip (autohaptic)



Series: Killing for Love [3]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Siblings, Cute, Dogs, Family Secrets, Forehead Kisses, Freight Hopping, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mommy Issues, Sibling Love, Trains, talking is hard, train surfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 23:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autohaptic/pseuds/kkscatnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Sleeping is hard. They're light sleepers by training and nature, and there is a significant amount of other people riding on the top of the freight train. Even if one watches while the other sleeps, it's still difficult to not come awake at each shock of loud sound from the tracks or burst of conversation from nearby riders. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Cassandra hopes they'll get used to it, or it's going to be a long, long ride to find a Russian-speaking country.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Along the Watchtower

It might seem to someone else, someone less familiar with Jason, that when he says, "Can we go somewhere I at least speak the language?" in Russian, in a joking tone, he's being funny.

And he is; he makes Cassandra smile, and she will never not enjoy smiling at her brother's jokes. But she knows that he also wants to be in a place where he can understand more of what people around him are saying, and she doesn't disagree. So she squeezes his arm and nods, and the delight on his face makes Cass smile even more. 

"Thanks, big sis." 

They don't actually know which of them was born first, but somewhere along the line, Jason decided to call her that. She doesn't return the favor, because 'little bro' feels awkward on her tongue. More awkward than words in general do.

Mom said she had a learning disability, but Cass is fairly sure it's deeper than that. She does have trouble learning, but once she learns, she knows, and she does learn. She just...can't make words come naturally, the way Jason does. 

Once, when they were young--younger than their current eight years of age--she whispered to him, "You stole my words." 

Jason just smiled and pulled her into a hug. "Then I'll have to talk enough for both of us, won't I?" 

And he does.

*

"I wonder how Brownie is doing," Jason says, a few minutes after they pass under a bridge. 

The afternoon sun is almost too warm, too pleasant, but Cassandra can't bring herself to care. She shrugs. Brownie is their dog, the one that Mom wouldn't let them keep. The one they found a way to keep anyway. 

"I bet he's all crouched under that one bush he likes, watching for one of us to come out and make the signal." 

"Mmmmm." 

"Unless mom caught him, I guess." 

It was one of their ongoing arguments: whether Mom knew about Brownie. Jason was always sure that Mom knew, but Cass had too much faith in their ability. If Mom knew, it was in vague terms, not specific ones. 

The silence stretches between them, interrupted only by the constant sound of the train moving.

"Do you think he's hungry again?" Jason asks, after a little longer. There are tears on his cheeks. 

When they found Brownie, he was an awkward-looking puppy with fluffy fur that didn't hide the fact that he was starving, nothing than skin and bones. He was sitting in the rain, too weak to move, whimpering steadily. Jason stuffed him into his shirt. They were six and a half.

Jason cried when Mom made them take him to the city and let him go.

Cassandra planned, quietly and efficiently. But she didn't plan for this, didn't plan to not be there entirely. A knot in her chest makes her breaths come harshly for a minute or two. 

Jason finds her hand and squeezes it. "It's okay. He's Brownie, and Brownie's a survivor; he'll find someone to feed him." 

Or, knowing China, someone starving worse than him to eat him. But Jason knows that as well as Cass does, so she doesn't need to say it. 

*

Sleeping is hard. They're light sleepers by training and nature, and there is a significant amount of other people riding on the top of the freight train. Even if she or he watches while the other sleeps, it's still difficult to not come awake at each shock of loud sound from the tracks or burst of conversation from nearby riders.

Cassandra hopes they'll get used to it, or it's going to be a long, long ride to find a Russian-speaking country.

*

The old woman they ask to act as their grandmother treats them like grandmothers in fiction do. (It was one of their favorite things, for Jason to read books to Cassandra.)

She is nosy at first, nearly as nosy as Mom, but after the sun goes down, she lays down and falls asleep and they are free to move toward the other end of the metal container. They curl up together, face to face, and Cassandra whispers, "We can't tell anyone. We--we must be...normal children. Make no waves." 

Jason's grin is sloppy and she wants to touch it, but only holds him tighter instead. "I know that, silly. It's why we got the old lady, isn't it?" 

"No," she makes her voice hard. Cassandra has been putting together the words in her head since the sun was high in the sky, and they still don't come out entirely right. "Mom will look for rumors. She knows we would...go where she has few contacts. She--she knows us. We cannot let anyone... _know_ us; we are a secret. Everything is...a secret." 

He looks serious, now, grin vanished and pressed into a line, beginning to nod his head slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, you're--just the kill, or all of it?" His tone says that he already knows the answer. 

Cassandra answers anyway. "All of it." 

This time, his nod is more decisive. After, he presses a kiss against her forehead. "Alright, big sis. We got a plan for when we get to Kazakhstan?" 

Cassandra presses a kiss against Jason's forehead in return, and smooths his hair back from his eyes. Whoever their father is, Jason takes after him. "You'll...figure something out, I'm sure." 

He beams at her, and Cassandra feels more assured than ever that they're going to make it through this just fine. They have each other, and both Mom and experience have taught them that all they need is each other.

**Author's Note:**

> At home, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English were used somewhat interchangeably in everyday communication; the way Cassandra and Jason speak tends to mesh and flow from language to language, especially when they're upset. They are both completely fluent in all three languages and find similar languages easy to learn. (Though Cassandra did go through a period where she learned proper English grammar, and so hated English and refused to speak it.)
> 
> At the age of six/seven/eight, they were introduced to Russian, Latin (included so they would have a better base for English and for learning any of the romantic languages they might need later on), and some of the other Chinese "dialects" like Shanghaiese. Jason is fully fluent in all of these, though the most rusty in Russian from not having someone to converse with after the tutor left; Cassandra can understand near fluently but producing words in these languages is not easy, especially Russian and Latin. 
> 
> Had they stayed, at age ten/eleven they would've begun learning Arabic, Korean, and German.
> 
> Hi, language nerd over here.


End file.
